This study investigated which level of graded reader was most appropriate for Chinese-speaking learners of various English abilities and whether there were significant differences in comprehension and vocabulary acquisition when different English proficiency (EP) groups read texts of varying difficulty levels. Eight-two senior high school students…

The current study is a qualitative case study that investigated the writing development of seven Chinese-speaking English language learners (ELLs) from kindergarten and 3rd-grade ESL classes in an elementary school in the Midwest and intended to discover the factors that affect students' English writing development in a one-year period. Guided by…

Lexical competence constitutes a crucial aspect in L2 learning, since building a rich repository of words is considered indispensable for successful communication. CALL practitioners have experimented with various kinds of computer-mediated glosses to facilitate L2 vocabulary building in the context of incidental vocabulary learning. Intentional…

The Assessment of Language Competence (ALC) certificates is an annual, international testing program developed by the Australian Council for Educational Research to test the listening and reading comprehension skills of lower to middle year levels of secondary school. The tests are developed for three levels in French, German, Italian and…

This paper proposes the identification and use of principle-based pedagogical patterns to help teachers to translate design principles into actionable teaching activities, and to scaffold student learning with sufficient flexibility and creativity. A set of pedagogical patterns for networked Second language (L2) learning, categorized and…

Foreign Language Elementary Summer Camp is a fantastic way to spend part of the summer. For the past ten years in Glastonbury, Connecticut, the authors have offered a variety of foreign language elementary camps that meet daily for three hours for three to four weeks during July. Currently, they offer camps for Chinese, English Language Learners…

The present study investigates to what extent learners' first language (L1) may have an impact on their writing and speaking performances. While Japanese continues to enjoy a large enrolment across levels in Australian schools and universities, the population of learners has become increasingly diverse creating challenges for teachers. One…

While Chinese language learning in Australian schools is characterised by predominantly second language programs for learners who have had no prior exposure to the target language, there is increasing participation by Australian-born children who speak Putonghua (Mandarin) or another dialect at home. Curriculum and assessment frameworks and…

Humans are remarkably adept at identifying individuals by the sound of their voice, a behavior supported by the nervous system's ability to integrate information from voice and speech perception. Talker-identification abilities are significantly impaired when listeners are unfamiliar with the language being spoken. Recent behavioral studies…

Regardless of the script, in the process of learning to read words, readers develop awareness of the structural and functional properties of words with increased exposure to the script. However, as sub-word units that are critical for phonological or morphological processing or both are not uniform, the types of the awareness may vary from script…

In this article, the author shares how she uses Chinese film in her Chinese language and culture classes. She demonstrates how Chinese films can help students "navigate the uncharted universe of Chinese culture" with reference to several contemporary Chinese films. She describes how intensive viewing of films can develop a deeper and…

Disclosure to parents and reasons for not disclosing different activities were examined in 489 Chinese, Mexican, and European American adolescents (M = 16.37 years, SD = 0.77). With generational status controlled, Chinese American adolescents disclosed less to mothers about personal and multifaceted activities than European Americans and less…

This article explores the background to the Chinese government's decision to embark on a programme of promoting the study of Chinese language and culture overseas. This includes the impact of Joseph Nye's concept of "soft power" in China, ownership of the national language, the Confucius connection, and how these factors interact with…

Frequency trajectory is a better measure to investigate age-limited learning effects than age of acquisition (AoA) ratings (Zevin, J. D., & Seidenberg, M. S. (2002). "Age of acquisition effects in word reading and other tasks." "Journal of Memory and Language, 47"(1), 1-29). The current study uses frequency trajectory as a variable to investigate…

We investigated the task processes which hinder people with intellectual disabilities (ID) when using the human-computer interface. This involved testing performance on specific computer tasks and conducting detailed analyses of the task demands imposed on the participants. The interface used by Internet Explorer (IE) was standardized into 16…